Politics

The Bush administration has poured billions of dollars into its “war on terror.” As part of this war, there have been extensive efforts to find terrorists in the United States. The results have been less than impressive and, in many cases, it seems that the government actually took a very active role in creating terrorists.

Pages 26-29 of the May 21, 2007 Newsweek provide the details of these activities.

In one recent case an American doctor and a jazz musician named Tarik Shah were arrested on terror related charges. They had pledged to be soldiers of Islam. Interestingly enough, the person administering the pledge was an undercover FBI agent.

In another recent case, six men were arrested for plotting an attack on Fort Dix. These men are not exactly cream of the crop terrorists-they were caught because they brought a DVD of themselves firing guns and shouting, in Arabic, “God is great!” These men eventually ended up speaking with federal informants about acquiring weapons.

In many other cases the FBI has arrested people who have allegedly been plotting (or at least endorsing) acts of terror. However, there is often little evidence that the alleged terrorists truly intended to go through on their alleged plots and even more doubt if they would actually have the means to do so. In many cases, as critics have pointed out, the alleged terrorists have been goaded by FBI informants who pretend to be radicals. This does raise some serious concerns.

On one hand, the use of informants as “bait” is a common and proven tactic in law enforcement. If you want to find terrorists or criminals, posing as one can be very effective.

On the other hand, there is the concern that the Feds are doing more than merely luring in people who are terrorists. In the cases described above, the informants were not simply observing and reporting-they were very active in getting people involved and moving them towards being terrorists.

This seems rather morally questionable as can be shown in the following analogy. Suppose I am concerned that students are cheating in my classes and I want to stop this. So, what I do is send emails to the students pretending to be a disgruntled student named Bob. In the emails I go on about how hard and unfair the grading is and how bad a teacher Dr. LaBossiere is. In my assumed identity, I then start encouraging the students to cheat and I am as persuasive as I can possibly be. Then, I set the trap. As Bob, I send faked (but plausible) answers to an upcoming test that I claim I was able to steal. After giving the test, I then see to it that all the students who used the fake answers are expelled for academic misconduct.

In this case, the students did do something wrong-they shouldn’t be cheating But, I am partially to blame for their cheating-without my concerted efforts to persuade them into cheating and without my providing the means to cheat, many of these students probably would not have cheated. By contributing to their evil action I have, it would seem, also done something immoral. Further, encouraging people to cheat and then punishing them does not seem to be a very effective means of combating cheating. It would be better to show the students the value of not cheating and taking the proper steps to deter and prevent cheating. After all, if I want to do good, then I should not be encouraging evil.

This applies to the situation regarding the terrorists. As noted above, the Feds seem to be taking a very active role in recruiting and encouraging terrorists. This certainly seems to be immoral. Someone more cynical than I might suspect that the Feds are doing their very best to create terrorists. After all, if they did not find terrorists here in America, then it would seem that billions of dollars have been wasted and civil liberties have been trampled for nothing.

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No, I’m not denying global warming. Ecomaniacs can put away their rage and the oil folks can put away their checkbooks. 🙂

I happened to see a segment on CNN about scientists who dispute the received view about global warming. In the segment claims were made that people who do this are persecuted in various ways, such as being fired.

While there is strong inductive evidence that human activity is a causal factor in global warming, there are still some grounds for doubt. After all, scientific reasoning of this sort is inductive causal reasoning and a hallmark of inductive reasoning is that the evidence gives the conclusion only a probability of being true. In short, in inductive reasoning you can always be wrong despite the best evidence and most careful reasoning. This occurs because inductive reasoning involves making that inductive leap beyond the evidence.

In the case of caual reasoning, as David Hume pointed out, we make an inference based on past connections and infer that X causes Y because of a proper correlation between X and Y. But, we can always turn out to be wrong because (as Hume argued) we never actually see a necessary connection or causal power.

So, from a logical standpoint, it is not irrational to be suspicious of the claims about global warming. All the claims put forth as evidence could be true, yet the conclusion about humanity’s role could be false.

Of course, the mere possibility of such a result does not provide good grounds for rejecting a claim-after all, if we accepted this approach we would have to doubt everything (such as whether hot stoves burn fingers or whether drinking a glass of Draino would be a bad idea) and that would be, to say the least, a bit crazy. More rationally, we should accept or reject this claim based on the quality of the evidence and the reasoning. So far, both seem quite good.

However, dissenting view points should be given consideration if they are well reasoned and supported by evidence. After all, even a well-established claim or theory can be shown to be flawed (history is full of such examples). Further, scientists who dissent against the majority opinion should not be persecuted. Science and philosophy are well served by those who dissent and doubt. At the very least, they force the majority to defend the accepted views and help keep the majority from becoming intellectually lazy or sloppy. This is not to say that any opinion is as good as any other-this is most definitely not the case. Some opinions are quite wrong.

My own view is that humans have contributed to recent environmental changes. The evidence seems quite clear-we produce large scale environmental effects that intuitively seem capable of impacting the climate. Of course, I’m a philosopher and not a climatologist-so all I can do is assess the quality of the reasoning as an expert and the evidence as an informed amateur.

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Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias was best known for being a vocal proponent of abstinence and a purported opponent of encouraging condom use to help prevent AIDS.

Interestingly enough, he recently resigned for “personal reasons.” To be more specific, it was revealed that he was involved with the so called D.C. Madam’s escort service. He alleges that he was merely being massaged and was not engaged in sexual activity.

This specific situation and so many like it, such as Newt’s recently revealed affair, help to show that conservatives who endorse a very strict sexual morality seem to all too often violate that morality in their own practices. It is rather ironic that they condemn liberals and others for their immoral ways. After all, these bastions of immorality compound their sins by being hypocrites.

On the plus side, the D.C. Madam situation does raise some interesting questions about human sexuality and behavior. I suspect, as many do, that the more vocal a person is in condemning human sexuality, the more likely it is that the person engages in the very acts s/he purports to despise. It seems slightly better to be an honest sinner than a lying ‘saint.’

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As almost everyone knows, Imus got in trouble for using both a sexist and a racist term to describe the members of Rutgers basketball team.

While saying such things is not morally acceptable, it is important to keep in mind two moral principles.

The first is that it is unreasonable to expect moral sainthood from human beings. Human beings are fallible and make mistakes-often stupid and serious ones. This should always be taken into account when passing judgment on others.
The second principle is that of reversing the situation. When passing moral judgment you should consider what it would be like to be the person on the receiving end. So, think about something unpleasant or cruel you might have said or done that you were truly sorry about. No doubt you wanted to be forgiven for that offense. If we are to expect others to forgive us, we need to be willing to forgive them.

If Imus said what he did because of a stupid mistake and is truly sorry for his words (and not just sorry he is in trouble), then the right thing to do is forgive his offense…as we would want to forgiven for our offenses. Naturally, if he is not truly sorry, then he should not be forgiven.

I am old enough to remember when Jesse Jackson made his infamous “Hymie town” remark. It was a stupid thing to say and he paid for that thoughtless remark. At the time I thought that he should not have said it, but I also thought that he should be forgiven for the same reason I now think Imus should be forgiven.

Of course, these remarks were not directed against me and perhaps I would think differently if they were.

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In the face of the inept lying on the part of Attorney General Gonzales, President Bush has decided to invoke executive privilege.

While this alleged power to invoke executive privilege is not specified in the Constitution, the gist of it is that the President can refuse to provide the public with information that he deems as privileged. This power is often invoked in the name of national security but is also justified by the claim that a President’s minions need to be able to freely provide advice without being worried that such advice will be made public. Thus, the justification is based on consequences: such things must be kept secret for the good of the country.

Oddly enough, while Bush and his minions are very much in favor of keeping their conversations secret, they are quite willing to violate the privacy of other people. The Bush Administration’s exploits in what amounts to domestic spying are both numerous and well documented.

When pressed on the matter of such intrusions, the standard justification is national security: by violating peoples’ privacy information can be gained that will help protect America from harm.

From a moral standpoint this practice can be justified on utilitarian grounds. To be specific, the harm inflicted by violating privacy can be justified by appealing to the fact that this practice prevents far greater harms.

Although the Bush administration has little to show for all its privacy violations, this moral logic is reasonable and can be presented as a moral principle: privacy can be violated when doing so will protect America from harm. Now, let us return back to executive privilege.

Bush and his minions have proven to be incredibly damaging to America and the world.

In the case of Iraq, Bush and his minions have directly contributed to the deaths of thousand of Americans and Iraqis. Further, America is wasting vast amounts of money and resources that could be be used to do good-such as providing health insurance to the millions of American children who lack that coverage.

In the case of Katrina, their bungling caused untold harm. In the case of their environmental policies they have continued America on a path towards disaster. In the case of their tax policies, they have helped the very rich and placed the burden of supporting the government on the middle class.

The list of harms could go on, but it is evident that Bush and his minions have hurt America more than bin Laden and all the terrorist in the world could ever dream of doing.

So, if it is acceptable to violate privacy in order to protect America from harm, then it is perfectly acceptable to deny Bush his executive privilege. After all, exposing what he and his minions have really been doing might very well help prevent further acts of Bush terrorism against this great country. The American people need to know what he has been up to…it is a matter of national security.